Today I have some simple line drawings to share with you.  I've found lots of joy in just drawing with a pen and going with what I draw and not worrying about perfection.  It's a wonderful practice session to not worry about perfection.  I made some bubble cards with India ink and then drew with a permanent ink on top.

To practice some more line drawings, I decided to make journal pages with the drawings.  It is still a work in progress. I have a couple more pages I've been working on that are not pictured.  I felt this would be a good way to keep a daily or weekly journal.

Have a great day!
​Naomi

We just got back from our family vacation from Southern Arizona.  It was so beautiful and warm to us from North Dakota.  I took many pictures for inspiration and was able to paint and draw a little bit.  One thing that I have learned to do is having bases ready to go so that I can use any background as a jumping off point.  I took some acrylic paint, mixed media paper, an old gift card and went to work!  I just spread out the paint with the card using different color combinations and creating texture.

Here are the bases that I created.  The lighting wasn't the best for this photo but this is what culminated.  Now I can use these bases as a jumping off point to add pen and ink, pictures, or words.

I then created a few pictures and used up some left over paint.

I watched a few recent videos on using found objects and thrift store purchases to add to my works.  There was a thrift store just down the street a couple miles from my parent's place and I found some really fun items.  I could only limit myself to what I could bring or ship back.  Here is what I found.  Some vintage patterns where all pieces can be used.  Some old National Geographic books, wood buttons, plastic beads and string.  I really liked the beach stamp but could use the other stamps as well.  I left the beads and strings for when I come back to the house in Arizona to challenge myself then.

We visited Tubac Arizona and the art community there.  I received so much inspiration that I worked on the next piece using watercolor and then pen.  It is not completed yet.

I hope you found some inspiration here.  My advice is to start somewhere.  Use an object or landscape to create inspiration and see where it takes you.
​Naomi

The past couple weeks I've been working on something fun!  Taking a book that I found for 10 cents and giving it new life.  I love books and reading so this felt a little weird at first but as I dove in and started drawing and blacking out text, it felt wonderful.
I tried to read a little of the book to make sure I did not want to read it and I don't so on with the altering.  The first page I decided to highlight some w words and then draw what I felt at the top using a permanent sharpie.

The next step will be to black out all the rest of the words that are not highlighted.  The wonderful thing about this is you have a background of words already for some blackout poetry.  I will add some color when the inspiration hits me.

The next page that I turned to was talking about cocktails so I decided to draw a martini glass with an olive.  I haven't decided yet on the background but I may apply gesso around the glass to white out the words and then apply some color.

I challenge you to find an old book or one that is destined for the trash and give it new life. The one nice thing is you can just bring the book with a pencil and a sharpie and do this whenever you feel like it. It doesn't take up much space and you can prepare your pages and add color later. I will post some more ideas and photos as the book progresses.

Have a wonderful day!
​Naomi

I am the second stop for the Growing in Unity Blog Hop and I am so excited to show you my project! Here is the full list of blogs in case you are out of order or missed one:
1. Janet O Harman http://twosistersscrapbooking.blogspot.com/
2. Naomi Hanson https://www.woodlandfoxcreations.com/
3. Kelly McKown-Santi https://sandcastlestamper.blogspot.com/
4. Katy Duffy Fowler. https://www.facebook.com/CastlehouseCards/?hc_location=ufi
5. Sandra van Blaricum https://cardsandcreativity.blogspot.com/

I decided to do an unconventional piece.  I worked on a mixed media project and pressed a Unity Stamp into some texture paste. I first cut up some watercolor paper down to 4.5" x 6". I added the paste to the paper and made different impressions and textures.

I used the bee stamp from the April 2019 smak kit What the Eyes Say and pressed the stamp into the texture paste.  I cleaned off the stamp right away so I wouldn't get any texture paste dried on it.

I also used a glass jar top to impress some circles into the paste to create some more interest. I continued on with some more watercolor papers, texture paste, and creating different textures with found objects, drawing in the paste with a skewer, stencils, and adding in a little glitter too.  I let all these dry completely and then you can add colors.

The next step is adding colors.  I chose to use India ink, watercolors, and gelatos.  You can use any kind of colors you want but just keep in mind when mixing colors too much, you may get some muddy colors when they mix.  I decided to highlight the stamp by using some magenta ink in the impression.

You can also color the texture paste and add this to the base canvas board like I did below.  I cut apart all the pieces into random shapes, arranged the pieces before attaching to make sure I like the layout and then attached these to a canvas board using the texture paste as long as they are light objects.  You can use gel medium to attach heavier objects.  I just kept building and coloring until I was happy with the layout.

The very last step was adding some colored texture paste to the background, adding the cut up pieces, adding black tinted texture paste through a stencil and around the edges and then adding some twine, a few random pieces of sequins, and a wood word. My advice is to take a break if you feel stuck or overwhelmed by the piece and come back to it later. The nice things about mixed media is you can always go back and make adjustments later.

I hope you enjoyed this different project!
​Naomi

One of the best ways to get in your creativity time is to just doodle on some paper wherever you are!  Grab a small sketchbook and one of your favorite pens and start drawing some shapes or words.  I've found the most therapeutic times for me is when I can just doodle and not have a worry of what it looks like.  This is how we learn what we like and don't like and it's great practice to get to know your drawing style and what you like to draw.  Below are some random drawings that I've been working on for practice.

I might add some color to these later but I'm leaving them alone for now and just working on drawing.  The next step from here would be to start working with color and different mediums and taking what I've been doing with my drawing and doodling and apply that over color- that will be in a future post.